Plan panel

A day after skipping the first meeting of NITI Aayog, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday slammed the Centre for abolishing the Planning Commission and said "everything is hazy like a fog" on development plans and how funds would be disbursed to states.

Six sub-groups will be formed under the Policy Planning Group headed by Chief Minister Harish Rawat to make the panel function more effectively and give final touches to policies being framed by the state government.

The 65-year-old Planning Commission was on Thursday replaced by a new body, NITI Aayog or the National Institution for Transforming India, which Prime Minister Narendra Modi said would “serve as a policy think-tank for the central as well as state governments”.

It has commissioned 12 five-year plans and six annual plans involving fund outlays of over Rs 200 lakh crore in its 65-year-history, but the fabled Planning Commission is itself set to be history as the government gears up to replace it with a new-age institution in the new year.

Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Sunday said that the role of the Planning Commission must be relooked in order to expand economic activity, adding that the new body, which will replace the existing commission, will aim towards cooperative federalism.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, while briefing the media on the deliberations of the meeting, said no time-line has been fixed, saying the Centre will take a "considered view after consultations are over".

Plans are afoot for reshaping of the Planning Commission to make it in sync with the changing times, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said ahead of his meeting with all Chief Ministers on Sunday on the issue.

The Planning Commission on Thursday projected 8 percent economic growth for the 12th Plan, but cautioned that "policy logjam" could slow the expansion to even as low as 5-5.5 percent during the five year period.